Tom Hanks:
Is an American Actor and Filmmaker and television Actor
Birth Name: Thomas Jeffrey Hanks

Born:  July 9, 1956 (age 59), Concord, California, United States 

Tom Hanks began performing with the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in 1977, later moving to New York City. He starred in the television sitcom Bosom Buddies, but became far more known when he starred in the Ron Howard film Splash. He went on to star in many more popular and acclaimed movies, including Big, Forrest Gump and Cast Away, and is now arguably one of the most powerful and well-respected actors in Hollywood.

Early Life and Carrer:

Hanks's parents divorced when he was 5 years old, and he was raised, along with his older brother and sister, by his father, a chef named Amos.
The family moved frequently, finally settling in Oakland, California, where Hanks attended high school. during his high school years. Hanks acted in school plays, including South Pacific, while attending Skyline High School in Oakland, California.  Tom is of English, and some German, ancestry. Two of his paternal great-grandparents were English immigrants. Tom's maternal grandparents were both of Portuguese descent (from the Azores Islands). Tom's maternal great-grandfather had changed his surname from "Fraga" to "Frager".

After graduating in 1975, attended junior college in Hayward, California where he decided to pursue acting after reading and watching a performance of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (1946). Then transferred into the theater program at California State University in Sacramento two years later.

In 1977, Hanks was recruited to take part in the summer session of the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Lakewood Ohio, Over the next three years, Hanks spent his summers acting in various productions of Shakespeare's plays and his winters working backstage at a community theater company in Sacramento.  where he won the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Actor in 1978, for his portrayal of Proteus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona..

Big break ; Splash:

Hanks some exposure and led to his casting in guest roles on various episodes of popular shows like Happy Days (1974-84), Taxi (1978-83), The Love Boat (1977-87) and Family Ties (1982-89). In 1982, Ron Howard, co-star of Happy Days and now working as a director, remembered Hanks and had him read for a supporting part in a movie. That supporting role eventually went to John Candy, and Hanks instead landed the lead role in Howard's Splash (1984), most notably Bachelor Party (1984), The Man With One Red Shoe (1985), Volunteers (1985), The Money Pit (1986) and Dragnet (1987). Auditioned for the role of Joel in Negocios riesgosos (1983), which eventually went to Tom Cruise.


Oscars Wins and BlockBusters:

Hanks emerged with two huge hits: Sleepless in Seattle, a romantic comedy written by Nora Ephron that rematched him with his Joe Versus the Volcano co-star Meg Ryan, have been co-stars in three movies   and Philadelphia, co-starring Denzel Washington, and also he worked with Jason Robards. 

Jim Lovell, whom Hanks played in Apolo 13 (1995),  a Ron Howard film based on the abortive lunar landing mission of the Apollo 13 spacecraft in 1970. In 1998, he starred in another groundbreaking blockbuster, Saving Private Ryan, a World War II drama directed by Steven Spielberg and filmed with gruesome accuracy. While the film was nominated for director and actor Academy Awards and was a favorite for best picture, only Spielberg took home the Oscar. And the same year, he also teamed on Juegos de placer (1997), with Stanley Kubrick's film holding the top ranking.ce more with Ryan and Ephron in the hit romantic comedy You've Got Mail.

9 actors received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for their work in a movie starring Hanks: Gary Sinise in Forrest Gump (1994), Ed Harris in Apolo 13 (1995), Michael Clarke Duncan in Milagros inesperados (1999), Paul Newman in Camino a la perdición (2002), Christopher Walken in Atrápame si puedes (2002), Philip Seymour Hoffman in Juego de poder (2007), Max von Sydow in Tan fuerte y tan cerca (2011), Barkhad Abdi in Capitán Phillips (2013) and Mark Rylance in Puente de espías (2015). Out of all these movies, Hanks was only nominated (and won) for 'Forrest Gump'.

A List Accolades:

In 1999, he reprised his role as the voice of Woody, the cowboy at the center of 1995's animated film Toy Story. Toy Story 2, also featuring the voice of Tim Allen, also starred in The Green Mile during this time, The film was set in a Depression-era prison and adapted from a story by Stephen King. and  Náufrago (2000).

Continued Success:

In 2002, Hanks produced the surprise hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding, starring Nia Vardalos. Next producing projects included the Imax space documentary Magnificent Desolation (2005) and Evan Almighty (2007). In 2004 starred in Joel and Ethan Coen's remake of the classic 1955 comedy Ladykillers. He later teamed again with Spielberg for the drama The Terminal (2004), and starred in the family film The Polar Express.

The Da Vinci Code (2006), based on the bestselling novel by Dan Brown and co-starring Audrey Tatou. appeared as the lead in Charlie Wilson's War, a drama based on a Texas congressman's efforts to assist Afghan rebels in their war with the Soviets. The performance earned Hanks a Golden Globe nomination, Then in 2009 he appeared again in Angels and Demons.

Hanks went on to perform voiceover work for the acclaimed TV miniseries The Pacific (2010, narrator) and the animated Toy Story 3 (2010), later starring in such films as Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) and Cloud Atlas (2012).

In 2013, after a monumental screen career, the actor made his Broadway debut in the 2013 production Lucky Guy,  he garnered a Tony Award nomination for best performance by a lead actor. also played Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks (2013), the biopic that shows how the studio head convinced P.L. Travers, played by Emma Thompson, to give him the rights to make Mary Poppins a cinematic project.


Personal Life :

Hanks met his first wife, actress and producer Samantha Lewes (real name: Susan Dillingham), while he was in college. They were married in 1978 and had two children, Colin and Elizabeth, before divorcing in 1987.
In 1988, he married actress Rita Wilson, with whom he co-starred in Volunteers. Hanks and Wilson have two children, Chester and Truman.